How Human Exploitation May Be Fought in Public Procurement-Affected Industries? : The Case for the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the False Claims Act

Gellén, Márton (2024) How Human Exploitation May Be Fought in Public Procurement-Affected Industries? : The Case for the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the False Claims Act. ACTA HUMANA: HUNGARIAN CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PUBLICATIONS, 12 (4). pp. 93-108. ISSN 0866-6628

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Abstract

Human exploitation is a global phenomenon despite being globally fought against. The exact number of people in modern enslavement remains unknown but the tendency is obvious. Counterintuitively, even Covid–19 policies seem to have contributed to the level of exploitation through supply shortages and increased demand for commodities and low-added-value goods. The article discusses the inevitable necessity that governments step up against all forms of human exploitation domestically so as in global supply chains. The article intends to stir up attention against the position that the U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulation, the UK Modern Slavery act, let alone the EU’s Public Procurement Directive could not be improved significantly. The article scrutinises these legislative items through the lens of their efficacy. The article finds that all three regulatory regimes have their specific imperfections: the U.S. law does not pay significant attention to the notion of reparation, the UK law outsources the problem to the corporates while the EU Directive does not even reflect on the triviality that supply chains are globally interlinked, let alone paying attention to the time dimension and legal limitations of criminal proceedings. Furthermore, all three regimes apply the notion of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products the public procurement of which are not under the anti-TIP regulations despite the apparent realities.

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